Sacramento barber gives Giants’ Tim Lincecum his new look

Tim Lincecum said he has had three haircuts in the past two years. So when the Giants right-hander unveiled a new look Friday – stylishly long on top with close-cropped sides – the pictures caused a predictable social media stir.

The architect of Lincecum’s new ’do: Sacramento-based barber Anthony Giannotti.

Giannotti, who runs the popular Anthony’s Barbershop on 21st Street in midtown, said his introduction to Lincecum actually came via Giants right fielder Hunter Pence. A friend of Giannotti’s met Pence’s girlfriend, Alexis Cozombolidis, at spring training this year, and Giannotti said during the conversation, “She asked him who the best barber he knew was. He recommended me.”

Giannotti said he cut Pence’s hair Tuesday. He then attended Friday night’s game against the Diamondbacks and cut Lincecum’s hair before the game at AT&T Park.

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Lincecum said he had an idea of the style he wanted from a picture of musician Matthew Healy of the British rock band The 1975 – but that plan began to evolve mid-cut.

“He started cutting it to kind of resemble The 1975 guy, but it didn’t really look as good on me as it did on him. So I just kind of kept cutting more and more hair off as I went,” Lincecum said. “It started long, got shorter, more like a comb-over, then it was kind of a faux-hawk. It had different stages.”

Lincecum said he was happy with the finished product. “(Giannotti) did a really good job as far as getting me what I wanted,” he said.

Giannotti posted before-and-after pictures of both Pence and Lincecum on his Instagram page, which has an estimated 110,000 followers. A self-described “big Giants fan,” Giannotti said candidly by phone Saturday that he didn’t really follow baseball until 2010, when the Giants won their first of three World Series titles in the last five seasons.

“Being the local team, I watched enough to start understanding and really appreciating,” Giannotti said. “Now I watch as many games as I can.”

For that reason Giannotti said he was “beyond excited” to add Pence and Lincecum to his list of heads sculpted this week. Pence is his favorite player, but Giannotti said he met a few other Giants players and “they’ve all been super nice, super rad.”

But are they picky clients?

“They gave me some recommendations, some pictures, stuff they were looking for,” said Giannotti. “I gave them my recommendations. I joked with (Lincecum) a little like, ‘Hey, I don’t tell you how to pitch; you don’t tell me how to cut hair.”